Known MR imaging systems employ a 3D FLASH (fast low angle shot) based contrast-enhanced MR angiography (CEMRA) sequence that utilizes a centric phase encoded k-space element reordering scheme (referred to herein as known centric reordering). K-space is the temporary image space in which data from digitized MR signals is stored during data acquisition and comprises raw data in a spatial frequency domain before reconstruction. When k-space is full (at the end of an MR scan), the data is mathematically processed to produce a final image. FIG. 2a shows ky-kz points sorted with respect to their radial distance from a k-space origin (kr) and shows ky-kz trajectories after the first 3 increments of radius kr provided using the known centric phase encoded k-space element reordering.
Due to the symmetry in k-space there are at least 4 k-space points with the same radial distance which are sorted according to the azimuthal angle φ relative to the ky axis. The centric ordering starts at kr=0, and continues to use k-space points with linearly increasing radial distance (FIG. 2a). Due to the strictly radial sorting, jumps between 4 quadrants occur regularly. FIG. 2b, shows 5 consecutive points selected by known centric reordering and the k-space jumps are larger towards the periphery of k-space. These jumps cause unpleasant acoustic noises and disturb some patients. A system according to invention principles addresses these deficiencies and associated problems.